Mike's death; Betty's life...: 03/02/26

Monday, March 2, 2026

Sunday, July 31, 2022

W & M's mother didn't respond to my several requests to tell me what the schedule would be now that M was back in school. W was going to a private school and would be starting on the 14th. I had some awkward interactions with the mother that led me to suspect she was ghosting me as a way of terminating our relationship. It made perfect sense that they might choose to drop me. They hired an educational psychologist in the spring to evaluate their daughters. The girls started seeing this woman for tutoring on weekends. It seemed like a lot to me. The mother said I would not work with the girls during the week now but only on the weekends. I worked with them during the week during the last school year. Now, she said nothing about the upcoming school year one way or the other. I would have thought less of it if she hadn't told me several times that I would be working with them. Was she ghosting me? It wasn't just her lack of response that concerned me.

I noticed a change after I told her she overpaid me for June. At the end of July, I received an email asking me to tell her how many sessions I had with the girls. The full month would have been twelve. I hadn't recorded one for July 4 or July 18. I was sure the 4th had been a cancellation, but sometimes I forget to record a session. I asked her to check her records. She wrote back, saying, "Fill in the number of sessions. Hours __________." She said nothing about our upcoming schedule, even though I asked her about it repeatedly. I could imagine she was offended because I pointed out she had made an error. Her husband told me she yells at the girls a lot. She was raised that way. That's how I was raised; I believe it's how my mother was raised. She couldn't tolerate the smallest degree of contradiction. W & M's mom may be that way. If I lost the girls, that would be sad. I thought we were doing good work. Of course, mom may not see it that way. The girls had fun when they worked with me.

I wrote stories with them. The parents may believe all that's going on there is that I'm writing the stories for them. What could that possibly do for them? The answer to that was a surprise to me too.

Thirty years ago, I worked with a second grader who couldn't read. I decided to write stories with his input, hoping he would be interested in reading them. I did notice that the stories became longer and more complex. When I spoke to his mother, she said, "He's writing amazing stories." I said, "You know, Carol, I'm the one writing the stories." She said, "You don't understand. He is speaking better." Huh! I've seen that outcome over and over. I have parents tell me how they see their children's speech and or writing improve, although they're not doing the writing. They dictate their stories as I write them. I modulate my input depending on the needs of the child. I am modeling verbal expression. They see their thoughts expressed. They learn how to express their thoughts. The impact is huge.

I also did two other exercises with the girls over the summer. With going-into-second-grade M, I started working on spelling. I used a piece she had written. Rather than focusing on how to spell a particular word, I focused on using auditory perception (sounding out) and visual recall (remembering the letters used to spell the words.) English spelling requires a mix of these two strategies. Doing it all by visual memory might work for a select few with photographic memories, but most of us are not so blessed.

With going-into-sixth-grade W, I worked on the question activity and the Gating Game. After one session with the question activity, W commented that sentences are like puzzles to be taken apart and back together. Yep. The activity teaches students to see the words in the sentences relate to each other and how to do it quickly.

The Gating Game, the activity I did with W, is most like a game. I give the first letter of a word and say how many letters are in the word or some other hint, the definition, the part of speech,

etc. It requires the student to understand syntax and relate the word to what has been said before in the passage. It requires skill.

B called and delivered a lot of good news about his family. His stepmother was helping his father's current wife take care of him. She comes over on Thursdays to give her a break. B's daughter graduated with top honors. His dad was doing all right for someone with multiple medical problems, is bedridden, and had lost some of his mental faculties. The man is like the Eveready battery; he keeps going. We said good night, and then B called back again with an offer to pick up the gravestones from the port. He had read my updates before going to bed, in which I discussed my plans to pick them up. Amazing how lucky I am. I told him I had already done it. Besides B's offer, the priest offered to go them up. Is he nuts? He is beyond busy, and I have almost nothing to do; the pick-up involved no physical strain. The people who do the loading don't even touch it. They picked it up with a forklift and placed it in my trunk. I bet B and Fr. Lio thought it was too big for a car. The stones are only 1' x 2' by 3". Mike would be thrilled with the simplicity. I hope so. I want him to be happy.

What makes Mike happiest is seeing me and Elsa cuddle and love each other. I can feel his joy. It is a moment that brings him back to me. I get two for one.

I had plans to learn the Hot Honey Rag dance from the finale of the film Chicago. I remember loving it. I watched it again over the last two days. I love the way the movie is done. This time I found the depiction of the human condition rather depressing. These are vacuous people who use others. My tolerance dropped precipitously.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

I slept well, as I always do. When my alarm went off, I didn't want to get up; I was somewhat depressed. I did my morning walk with Elsa. I don't dwell as much when I'm active. I can be fine within myself, but I am susceptible to negative feedback. We are all sensitive to it—someone with no sensitivity is classified as a sociopath. We're social animals designed to care about what others think of us and how the members of our group are doing. We monitor the behavior and welfare of others as they do with us.

After walking and feeding Elsa, I meditated for an hour. I'm just fine when I watch my breath. My life goal was total healing, not just coping. I could strive for this and learn for my own sake and others. I saw myself as a guinea pig in this experiment. I learned a lot and accomplished a lot. What I have to offer won't be widely known, but I contributed as part of the zeitgeist. Many of the ideas I've held for years are becoming mainstream without my input. I have also helped individuals. If they haven't already, someone will come up with the ideas I generated. I'm just part of my time doing my job to move things along.

After meditating, I needed a nap. Meditating used to refresh me; now, it exhausts me. I'm not sure why. It's not a bad exhaustion. I feel deeply relaxed, and the naps are lovely.

I got an email from Tom Ockler, a fantastic PT I worked with once who made a huge difference. He posted glute exercises. My PT gave me one too. I incorporated it more into my walk. Tom's video inspired me to push harder on my right glute, open the hip, and stretch my psoas and inner thigh muscles. When I did that, my stride was equal.

In Batchelor's book, Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist, I learned more about the rigidity of Buddhism. My exposure is through Vipassana. When S. N. Goenka talked about learning from our own experience, I took him at his word. That's what I did, and that's what I do. However, Batchelor had a different experience. I had the same experience with my father. We would discuss something until I saw it his way. It is what the traditional Buddhists are like, too, at least the Tibetan and Zen Buddhist Batchelor encountered. He was supposed to listen to his perceptions but come to the same conclusions as the religion's elders.

The other thing I learned about is the Buddhist commitment to the belief in reincarnation. When Batchelor questioned it, his teachers were appalled. If people didn't believe in reincarnation with their belief in karma, there would be no reason to live a moral life. Karma and reincarnation promise rewards and punishments for our behavior in this life. The Christian religion promises heaven and hell.

I was raised in an agnostic household that didn't believe in heaven and hell. I lived with three other women in Northport on Long Island in my early twenties. One was a devoted cradle Catholic. She said, "I was raised to believe that someone who wasn't religious couldn't be moral. Betty, you're the most ethical person I have ever met." My sister and I were raised thinking about moral issues. What made an act moral or immoral? My father said, "Our freedoms end where the other guy's nose begins." It's a nice saying, but some people have huge noses that stick into everything. Defining moral behavior is not that simple.

For the past six months, since Elsa had accepted that her dad, Mike, was not coming back, she has been attached to me. Wherever I went in the house, Elsa went after me. She stood at the door if I left the house and barked nonstop. Except – at night as I watch TV shows. Then she was nowhere to be seen. One night, I walked around the house looking for her and couldn't find her. She also didn't join me when I went to bed at night. She sometimes joined me in bed only after I fell asleep. Weird.

I watched a Netflix show, Purple Hearts. Not half bad.

_________

Musings:

It has been a while since I have created a separate section for this thinking. I have incorporated some of my ideas into the body of the text.

Someone told me they "sacrificed" to do something for me. Those are fighting words. The person comes from a military background. This is a cheap word in that context, easily bandied about. Parents talk about how they sacrifice themselves for their children. In today's world, there is no such thing as a parent who didn't choose to have a child. It has changed since the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade.

So, let's define sacrifice. When is an action with unpleasant consequences a sacrifice? When is that word applicable? The military uses that word. People sacrifice their limbs, their lives, their sanity, and their hope of ever living an everyday life for their country. It pits something they want against something they absolutely don't want. They don't want to be maimed, die, have PTSD, and be incapable of living a 'normal' life. On a rate from 1 to 10, those choices rank at one, if not lower. They're willing to make that sacrifice for something they value. It is a sacrifice.

But some people use that term to describe having chosen chocolate over vanilla when they only slightly prefer that chocolate over that vanilla. Then there is everything in between. We should develop an algorithm to determine when someone has a right to use that word.

Besides comparing the outcomes of 'sacrifice,' we compare the things for which we can sacrifice ourselves. Movie actors often face very uncomfortable situations, if not downright dangerous ones, to achieve an effect in a movie. Do we consider that a sacrifice? Do we value sacrifice for art as much as we do sacrifice for others? Is it truly less of a sacrifice because it doesn't impact someone's life in the same way? Does a parent's discomfort for their child qualify as more of a sacrifice?

Whatever, I take offense at the idea that anyone sacrificed for me. They should have talked about it with me if they had to give up that much of what they wanted. I don't want someone to sacrifice for me if it can be avoided. People who use that term to describe their behavior are far from sacrificial. They are manipulative and punishing. They expect to be rewarded because something wasn't perfectly what they wanted. They hold some fantasy that their other choice would have been perfect.

Friday, July 29, 2002

I had a PT appointment at 7:30. Katie worked on my body after watching me walk around the facility and up the incline in the parking lot. I did just fine. She noticed that my gait was still not even. My left leg stride was shorter than my right. I adjusted. She saw I torqued my hips to get that effect. She told me not to do that. I would throw my back out. The difference between my two legs wasn't that great, anyway. She reminded me of several exercises I was supposed to do. One I hadn't understood correctly. I was supposed to pump my ankles while straightening my knees to release a pull on the sciatic nerve. She had told me about the ankle pump, but I thought that had to do with avoiding blood clots after the surgery, not sciatica. I had already used ankle pumps to release a certain tension in my leg. I would hear a pop in my ankle. I thought this meant the problem was there and radiated up. Katie said that it was the far point of the sciatic nerve that popped. I still don't quite understand how it works.

I had my appointment with my therapist/life coach today. I was wallowing in self-pity, focusing on negative relationships. I understand it is the natural tendency for all of us to focus on the negative. We are not designed to live in our 'civilized world.' We are designed to live in the wild. We are designed to look out for threats to our life. Any situation free of threat requires no consideration. Our lives were not in danger. Any encounter that doesn't go well threatens our well-being. When we lived on the savanna, social conflicts were as much a threat to our well-being as an encounter with a lion. We focus on it because we must figure out how to survive the situation. No situations in my current circumstance threaten my life, no matter how much conflict or contempt between me and someone else. But none of our psyches are designed to ignore these circumstances. I always wanted to work things out. I have learned this is sometimes not possible. The other person isn't open to what I have to offer. I find cutting them off the easiest on my nerves. But then, bad feelings resurface like acid reflux occasionally, and I feel sad. I'm more preoccupied with negative relations because my mom constantly told me that no one liked me.

She was concerned about my outgoing personality and eagerness to tell people what I was thinking. Another aspect was her concern for my well-being showed up if anyone said anything positive about me. Yeah, she genuinely believed that positive feedback was bad for her children. She made a point to be a 'good' parent and deluge us with negative feedback. She argued that she was the only one who loved us enough to tell us the truth. That has a twist to it that doesn't sound so loving. Whatever the cause, I have to figure out how to deal with these feelings. When Mike was alive, he would hug me. That cured a world of woe.

Jean, my Hanai sister, called. Besides other things, she talked about bad dreams. I don't remember many of my dreams, good or bad, except the occasional one where I dream that Mike left me for someone else. I knew that Mike would never leave me for another person. It had nothing to do with how wonderful I was. He would just never have done something like that. He couldn't. If tempted, he would have rejected the other person. That's just who he was.

Jean remembers behavior she regrets in her bad dreams. I have those thoughts when wide awake. I described them as searing. She recognized the sensation and thought that was the perfect word to describe it.

I am reading Stephen Batchelor's Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. My friend John Zim turned me on to this author year ago. The first book I read of his was Buddhism Without Belief, where he describes the positive benefits of Buddhist practices and understanding of the human psyche. In the book I am currently reading, he details his journey through Buddhism- absolutely fascinating. Besides being informative, Batchelor is a wonderfully lucid writer, a joy to read.

He clarified my understanding of the Buddhist concept of emptiness or egoless. I believe they are the same thing. His definition makes sense. It's really ego flexibility. I was Mike's wife; I am now Mike's widow. His death radically changed my life. Mike's mother felt she was no longer a person after her husband died. That was a radical loss of identity. I didn't feel that way. But I was born into a different era. In my mother-in-law's time, a woman would lose all her social connections with the loss of her husband. Having a loose woman floating through the social world of couples was out. I was blessed with a world with greater flexibility. I am not shunned by the friends Mike and I made together. But I am experiencing something comparable. My life is relatively empty. Who am I now? Being able to sit with that uncomfortable question is emptiness. It all relates to the underlying concepts of Buddhism- everything is subject to change. Are you prepared to follow the bouncing ball?

I watched the end of This Little Love of Mine on Netflix. It was as meaningless as anything could be. The main characters had zero chemistry and couldn't even fake their mutual distaste. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 38%. But it wasn't violent or downright nasty.

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Today was our first driveway yoga class in months. Yvette did it because Jared's husband, mother, and sister planned to attend. They were all here to honor Jared, who died from what is assumed to be an accidental overdose. I hadn't heard anything, but I thought he got something laced with fentanyl. Deb, one of the yoga regulars who moved to Seattle, came in for the memorial service and was here today for the class. Yvette told us that Jared was the inspiration for driveway yoga. He proposed it to Yvette at the start of the Covid pandemic. He was the inspiration.

The class started with just Jared and Scott. Then Yvette got me to become a regular. I was the most regular. Of course, I didn't have far to travel for the class. Initially, Yvette had class three times a week. Then she dropped it to two to get one day to sleep in. Then she dropped it to one. Then it was none for a while. She planned to do the Thursday class regularly for the time being. I valued the class and was so glad she started up again.

When I got up from my mat at the end of the class, I still had to lean on the chair and push myself up with my arms. In the process, I flexed the toes on my right foot. I felt that stretch through my arches and the muscles at the bottom of my toes. It felt like just what the doctor ordered for my hammer toe. It relieves any discomfort I have in the foot. I also recall the chiropractor I saw for the toe fungus made some comment about my hammer toe, suggesting there was something she could do about it.

At 9:30, I had a session with the M & W sisters. I continued working on the spelling with going-into-second-grade M. W chose to continue with the Gating Game. The activity stresses me out. I have to think of good clues. Sometimes nothing comes to mind, and I have to give her the answer.

I left to do some chores in town after that tutoring session. My first stop was at the cemetery to measure the cement pillows and photograph them. I forgot to take a measuring tape and headed to the parish office to get one. An unfamiliar woman came walking across the parking lot in the other direction. She said she would be back in the office in a minute. Getting up to the office required me to climb stairs. This was the first set since the surgery. I did about as well as I did before the surgery. I was generally doing as well as I had done before the surgery. That was my baseline level of satisfaction with the procedure. I wasn't in excruciating pain before the surgery as most people with total hip replacements, so my standard of success was higher than most.

There was no one else in the office but this woman. That was odd. There are usually several people. Susan, the previous administrator, retired and moved to the mainland a few months ago. I had yet to meet the new administrator. Brenda used to be on staff, and TJ was always around. Today, I was just this one woman. She was a volunteer and a recent member of the church. She didn't know Mike. That made me sad. The river moves on. Soon there will be no one who knew him and valued him.

The woman found a ruler, and I headed to the gravesite. One of the pillows was more stained than the other. I realized the design of the pillows wasn't quite what I expected. The granite gravestones will have to be fixed to the cement. That was going to be the case anyway.

My next stop was Ace Hardware to look for cement paint. They didn't have an appropriate selection. I used to love dealing with Home Depot, but I discovered the service at Ace is usually better. People there know their products, but Ace didn't have what I needed in this case.

I saw a customer at Ace Hardware wearing a shirt with Kua Bay on the back. Damon and August are Kua Bay fanatics. Both their birthdays were coming up. Matching shirts would be perfect. The man said he got them at the Kona Brew Pub. I headed over there after I was through at Ace.

The shirts were sold at a kiosk at the entrance of the pub. Tourists, who didn't know what they wanted, were lined up to buy them. I knew what I wanted. I texted Cylin to ask for shirt sizes for the two boys. With that information, I didn't need to know anything else. I read my Kindle as I waited. The transaction was quick. I bought two very expensive pieces of crap. The shirts are 75% polyester, with some cotton and some rayon. They're flimsy. Damon will appreciate the matching set. August may be at an age when this is all from his 'childhood.' I have to get him something else anyway.

I went to Lowes next to see if I could find paint there. They carried a whole line of paints suitable for covering cement with a pamphlet showing me all the colors - perfect. Then I was home and had some time for a nap before my session with Adolescent D.

In the last session, I laid out the six syllable patterns for D. I had repeatedly shown him the VC (Vowel + consonant, the closed syllable, and the VCe, the vowel+ consonant+ e). I had written out examples and the letters VCe or VC on top of the words and the letters in the word. I finally thought to ask D if he knew what the V stood for. He said no. Ow! This was the first time I had run into this problem. I have repeatedly said "vowel" when writing the V, and "consonant" when writing the C, and he still didn't get it. Holy cow! Whatever caused this problem, the only solution was to start from scratch. There has been no question about D's intelligence. There were several possible causes for this problem, neurological and psychological, or a combination of both.

I said, "The V stands for vowel. Can you name the vowel letters?" He did that with ease. That was good. It had been a while since we reviewed them. He not only remembered them; he remembered them in the correct order.

We started with the open syllable. I don't know how often I discussed the idea that there could not be a consonant after the vowel within the syllable. We also worked on syllable division ad nausea at another time. He repeatedly pointed out that there was a consonant in the following syllable. I finally said there is a difference between having a girl sleep in your bed or a bed in another room. That's how big the difference is between having nothing behind the vowel within the same syllable and having a consonant in the same word but in the following syllable. I had to repeat that over and over and over. There are concepts he gets immediately, but these. I asked him to repeat the words I said. He couldn't. He also couldn't remember if the vowel in an open syllable was long or short even though I had said what it was minutes before. The bad news is obvious. The good news and it was very good news, was that he let me see how bad it was.

Why didn't I see this sooner? D uses his intelligence to hide his disability, and he is good at it. Why didn't I test him and out him? Because I didn't think that would be the best strategy for him. I knew from the beginning he was very ego defended. If I outed him before he was ready, I would lose him. He had to be handled with great care. This change indicates an increased trust in me. More importantly, it indicated an increased confidence in himself and his ability to learn.

D didn't let me see his face when we worked on Zoom. When I say he was hidden, I mean he was hidden. His father walked through the room in one of our first sessions and said, "Wouldn't it be better if you could see his face?" I yelled after his father, "No, this is what your son needs." It has taken me this long to win his trust in himself and me. He has learned in our time together that he can learn; that's where the faith in himself and brain plasticity, which I sell big time, comes in. Now let's see how long it takes for the following:

1. For him to consistently recognize the V stands for vowel, and the C stands for Consonant

2. For him to write an example of all the patterns, for instance, writing an when he sees VC, ei when he sees VV, writing ide when he sees VCe, writing a when he sees V, writing or when he sees Vr. The sixth pattern is the final stable syllable. A whole other can of worms

3. For him to consistently correctly identify the primary vowel choice for each pattern: VC- short, V, VV, VCe – long, and the sound of the V in a Vr pattern.

I told D over and over to pay attention to the vowel pattern. He revealed that he was sure I was teaching him the wrong thing. He also revealed that he only recently understood that if he wanted to learn something, he would have to take charge and make himself rise to the challenges and do the work. When I asked him when he understood that, he said, "When I was fifteen." He's fifteen now. Oh, boy. This kid is one massive challenge on so many fronts.

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

It was a nothing day. There was stuff I could have done but didn't. I could have done some gardening and needed to change my will. I finally got the information to Howard to get his advice. He emailed me his response, but I needed help understanding some of it. I needed to call him, but who had the time? That was what my life was like in those days. I had almost nothing to do and no time to do it. Somehow this was much worse since I had the operation. I was more confined than I had been. I didn't leave the house for the first two weeks. Then I still couldn't go walking up and down our street. My leg wasn't good enough; I was still on a walker. I slept a lot during the first five or six weeks. Now, I felt less need to sleep during the day. It was a shame. I missed those deep comforting naps.

Lutz, God bless him, told me that with the old anesthesia, people lost twenty-five points off their IQs. He said that doesn't happen now, but that's what I felt like.

Yvette came up to visit for a minute before she left with a friend to run some errands. She was expecting to be away until August 1. Those plans got changed because she contracted Covid while in Colorado. All her travel plans were centered on attending her paternal grandfather's 100th birthday. Then she and one of her uncles got sick. Because they had picked up Yvette's brother from the airport, he, along with Yvette and her uncle, couldn't attend the birthday party. Yvette was very knocked out for the first few days but had no serious complications. She was still tired this morning, but that could be the result of recovering from any flu. It didn't mean she had long-term Covid. This morning, she told me eleven of the thirty-five people who attended the party reported having Covid when they got home, including her 100-year-old grandfather. People of a certain age can get a medication that helps alleviate the symptoms. Her grandfather was in good spirits. Most of the revelers flew home while they were coming down with it. They were negative before they got on the plane and positive when they got off. This means they probably infected people who shared their journey.

Now that I have the engraved gravestones, I needed to figure out how to treat the cement pillows to lean the gravestones on. It looked like a no-brainer. They make a product for this purpose. I must stop at Ace Hardware soon to pick up a color chart. I want to see the choice against the color of the granite. The gravestones were sitting in the back of my car, still in its packing for shipment. I had yet to look at them. I was a little afraid to. What if I was disappointed? I know the answer to that already. The sadness will pass. I was not that heavily invested in the gravesite. I've never been one who visits graves to talk to the dearly departed.

I had a session with adolescent D. He finished reading all the words in the sight word list his other tutor had compiled of the words he had trouble with. I wrote every word that rhymed with the target word spelled the same. He pretty well zoomed through the rest of the list. He could identify every phoneme in a word. He actually offered some words that rhymed. This means his auditory processing was better. I had reason to believe this may be due to the audio file he'd been listening to. I wish I could get him to listen daily. I hoped he would finally see the value of the strategies I tried to teach him, which he stubbornly refused to use. I went over the six-syllable patterns. We had been focusing on the VC and VCe patterns.

I opened a new bag of Hersey's Milk Chocolate nuggets with almonds to discover those almonds were no longer whole. The size of the chunk varies from half to none. Yep. Sometimes there isn't a trace of almond in the nugget. This is Hersey's way of cutting back without having to raise prices. I saw this a lot. The cost of a case of almond milk had mostly stayed the same, but you only got four quarts of almond milk instead of six. Some difference

Scott said he was going out to move his car and trailer. Huh! "Driveway yoga tomorrow." Oh, yes. I had forgotten. I went out to move my car too. Because I had to back my car up in the dark, I asked Scott to do it for me.

The hammertoe on my right foot was bothering me. It rubbed against the top of the shoe and where it made contact with the first toe. I iced the foot and started stretching exercises. I felt the stretch in my metatarsals. As I lay reading, I used my right foot to push the second toe back into

In today's Wordle puzzle, my second starter word, stomp, was the target word. That was easy. I did more work on NY Times daily puzzles. I love doing them online with the cheating options: I try all the vowel letters and use the Reveal function when I run into trouble. I'll also do whatever I can and take a break. When I come back later, I get more words without cheating.

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

I jumped up and left when my alarm went off at 9 am. I was off to Kawaihae to the port to pick up the engraved gravestones for Mike and me. It would take forty-five minutes to an hour to get there. Last time, I ran out of electric bars driving there. This time I was careful. I used the HEV motor on all downslopes and the EV motor on all uphill ones. All roads here go up and down because our lava flows like ice cream; it doesn't explode and rush down to the sea as it does in other locations. Our eruptions come from a hot spot, a weak spot in the ocean floor crust. I made it to the port with plenty of electric bars left. I was comfortable that I would make it home without difficulty.

When I arrived at Kawaihae, I needed to find the entrance. I figured I could always turn around and circle back. Better to move on and look for something familiar. I saw the Young Bros sign.

My first stop was the bathroom when I entered the compound. Next, I went through the military-style security check. They directed me to the trailer that dealt with incoming shipments. There was no line. There were long lines when I dropped the slabs off to be shipped to Honolulu. I waited over an hour. Today it went rapidly.

It took a minute for someone to come to one of the three windows. I had the picture of the bill of lading open on my phone. The clerk asked for my driver's license. That was all she needed. She returned with my receipt and asked me to pay the $80, the minimum shipping cost. Another woman approached me as I left the cashier window and told me to pull over to the other side of a fence with my trunk open.

When I popped the trunk, I discovered stuff I had bought from Costco: a twenty-five-pound bag of salt, three cases of almond milk, a gallon of distilled water, and two gallons of vinegar. I had to put down the seats and shift everything as close to the front of the car as I could. I left my trunk door open and pulled to the location. I was on the other side of the fence from \where I had been before. Someone pointed me in another direction. The woman was standing in the middle of the road behind me. I pulled over. She said, "Stop right here." Someone pulled up behind me with a forklift and put the load in the back of my car. Done! I didn't have time to write a text or read my Kindle. I had been ready for a wait of several hours.

I asked the woman why it was so empty when it had been so crowded when I did the drop-off. She said it varies. It had been crowded that morning. I hit it at a perfect time. I also asked the woman about their schedule. She told me shipments that come in on Friday are ready for pick up on Monday or Tuesday. Shipments that come in on Monday are ready for pickup by Wednesday or Thursday. I could have come on Wednesday to pick up the gravestone slabs. It was just as well. I completed the task with a small accommodation on the part of the M &W sisters.

The trip home was smooth. I applied the same strategy I had driving there. I used the HEV motor on down slopes and the EV up the slopes.

My right foot started to hurt yesterday. Damn! I had hoped my toe deformity wouldn't be a problem; I developed a hammer toe; my second toe was climbing over the first. Now I faced another challenge to my mobility in my old age, my older age. I applied ice and massaged the foot. I also started stretching exercises.

After getting home, I headed over to Paulette's to get water. Elsa always goes with me. She runs for the door when she sees me pick up the bottles where I store the water. She knows what is going to happen next. She is one smart dog.

I donned my mask and went inside. I don't usually do that. I insist that Paulette come outside to visit. I was careless today. Paulette was hemming a dress Judy bought at Target. I liked it longer, but Judy said it felt like she was wearing a sack and found the shorter hem cooler. We shared funny family stories. When it started to rain, I ducked out before I got stuck there.

Judy and Paulette's family have contagious diseases running through it like water. A stomach virus ran through the family. The last victim was Judy's granddaughter visiting from Lanai. Her mother and brother went home when scheduled. Her dad stayed at Judy's on the Big Island to give her another day to recover. They faced a six-hour trip home. Someone could paddle from the Big Island to Lanai in that time. It's only thirty-five miles away, but there are no direct flights that don't cost a small fortune too much for a family of four on a teacher's salary. They take two flights: one to Honolulu and then one to Maui. They catch a bus to the ferry site to get to Lanai. Then, of course, they have to get home from there. They left the other day. I learned today that the poor kid felt lousy the whole way, even though she was no longer throwing up. Today, Judy and Paulette told me that Adam had a sore throat. I wore a mask but went inside, which I don't usually do.

I asked Adolescent D how much he wanted to learn to read, giving me a number between 1 and 10. He said 6. I asked him how much he wished he was in charge of his life. He gave an 8 for that. He floated through his life, drifting toward what was easiest. While he was cooperative, his effort level was close to zero. He finally agreed to read the transcript of the audio file of the 5 Stories. I sent it to him. I'm not counting on him doing it. He finished reading all the words on the word list provided by the other tutor with all the rhyming words or words that followed the same pattern. We went back to using the driver's manual. The good news was he could still read the words in the first item without difficulty. I had him identify which letters comprised a pattern worth remembering. He still needed to understand that these patterns are all based on the vowels in the syllables. The boy doesn't see patterns.

We came across the word must twice. When D saw it the second time, he had no idea what to do with it. I told him we had marked the pattern on the word in the line above. All he had to do was find the word must there. He couldn't do it. I asked him if he looked at every word or just glanced and expected the word to pop out at him. The latter. That's great. I can do that, but I've read at least a thousand words a day for the last seventy-five years. Rapid recognition depends on familiarity.

When I was in grad school, I had a roommate who was a geneticist. I went to her lab. She showed me two containers of fruit flies. "How do you know the difference." She said, "These have a red spot on their back, and those don't" Right! I couldn't see a red spot. She could not only see them but be able to separate them at lightning speed. Familiarity.

`think of with the same spelling, he chimed in with some I hadn't included because they were spelled differently. Still, this was a significant improvement. Also, he could identify the words' individual sounds (phonemes) with greater ease. I pointed this out to him. "Yes, I suppose so." I told him this was great news because phonemic awareness is the biggest predictor of a good reader. It could be a result of listening to the audio file nightly. Was he doing it regularly? D doesn't do anything regularly. It drives me nuts. I proposed he read the transcript of the audio file. I sent it to him. Let's see what he does with it. At least he didn't say he wouldn't read it. He often does that. I don't know if he was describing what he knew his behavior would be because he had no control over himself or he was refusing to do the work.

Adolescent E stopped by to say goodbye. He stayed with his grandfather for three weeks. His mother never allowed him to spend that much time here. I handed him Mike's old tablet to give to his mother so she could use it with her younger children.

Yvette came home. She was supposed to be away until August 1. She contracted Covid, which prevented her from attending her grandfather's 100th birthday bash and led her to cancel the rest of her trip.

Monday, July 25, 2022

I slept well, and my leg did well. Those hamstring stretches did the trick. I planned to call Young Brothers in the morning. The gravestone etchers on Oahu sent me the bill of lading for the shipment of the engraved stones back to the Big Island.

A while ago, I called the engraving company to ask about the progress on the etching of my gravestone. They already did Mike’s. I remembered giving the go-ahead to Veronica to do mine on the phone. She said I hadn’t. I think she needed it in writing. She sent a proposal via email again. I okayed it. Veronica said they would rush the job. I gave the okay before the surgery on June 2. I called around July 20 to ask what was going on. Veronica said she planned to call me that day because they had dropped the crated stones at the dock the day before. She texted me the bill of lading and told me to expect to hear from them. I should call them if I didn’t hear by the following Wednesday.

I sat down to meditate after I pulled up all the documents I might use in my work with the M & W sisters and the daily Wordle puzzle. I went into my bedroom so Scott would feel comfortable moving around the kitchen. The phone rang- caller unknown. I figured it was Young Brothers. It was a good thing I didn’t answer. There was a lot of information on when I could do the pick up: Mondays between 7:30 and 11:30 am, Tuesdays between 7:30 and 3:30 with a lunch break between 11:30-12:30pm. I doubt I have remembered all that. I find my auditory recall ain’t what it used to be.

In my session with going-into-second-grade M, I worked on spelling. I meant to use the last story she wrote. By accident, I pulled up one she wrote last year. She said she didn’t write it. It did seem so simple that I also wondered if she had written it, but I couldn’t imagine saving it under someone else’s name.

When working on a similar activity with going-into-sixth-grade W, I read a sentence from a story we had worked on; she had to remember the sentence and spell the words. The objective was writing skills more than spelling. I just dictated one word at a time and focused on spelling skills with M. Doing this helped me clarify my Phase III of The Phonics Discovery System. Jana noted that I didn’t focus on how to teach spelling skills in the video I put together. I see the problem now. I briefly mentioned spelling in the middle of the PowerPoint video. I will have to start with the spelling rather than see it as a small subcategory of the PowerPoint.

I had my Monday Reading & Writing office hours for Step Up-Tutoring today. One tutor had signed up. However, she was a no-show. I stayed on the Zoom site for the hour; someone else might have come on. No one did. I worked on the updates and NY Times puzzles.

Today my right foot felt like it was too big for my Croc. The top of the second toe was rubbing against the top of the shoe. My foot didn’t look swollen. I was uncomfortable walking. Now what? It’s like I’m constantly taking on the next physical challenge. The second toe on the right foot crossed over the first before the surgery. I tried slings to hold the toe in place. They didn’t stay put, and it felt like they were strangling my toe-think tourniquet. If I did nothing, it didn’t bother me. When I went to Kaiser for my follow-up visit with Dr. Salassa after the surgery, I saw a local woman sitting on a bench outside the clinic. She was wearing the shoes of choice in Hawaii, slippers known as flip-flops in New Jersey. She had the same problem I did. Her foot looked peaceful and pain-free. I decided not to worry about the deformity. My foot couldn’t possibly get as bad as my grandmother’s. I took her to the podiatrist while he scraped off calluses from the bottom of her feet. She wore form-fitted orthopedic shoes and hobbled. I swore off wearing women’s shoes, heels that thrust feet forward, or any woman’s shoe with its narrow, pointy toe box. I wore men’s shoes whenever I could. It drove my mother nuts to see me dressed so. She said, “For beauty, you must suffer comfort.” I said, “That’s a no-brainer.” She had no comeback for that. It seems I inherited every family problem related to bones and teeth. I may need another operation on my foot to get that toe straightened out. I was pretty sure my metatarsal problems caused it. My first metatarsal is shorter than my second. It throws everything off.

Sunday, July 24, 2022

I got up by 6. My leg felt as it had yesterday. Aside from the pain limiting my movement, I worried about a possible blood clot. The sharpest pain is just below my knee on the inside. I finally Googled the leg arteries. Maybe I didn't have anything to worry about. Arteries run down the back of the leg behind the knee, not to the outside edge where I had pain.

I stayed in bed to do some of the recommended exercises, lifting one straight leg at a time and lowering it slowly. It had been a while since I had done the exercise. I focused on tightening my upper thigh muscles as I walked, hoping I did the same thing. I was pleased that I was stronger and had a much easier time doing the exercise than before. I also did the glute exercise. This time I pushed into a bridge as Katie recommended. I hadn't done it that way because it caused leg cramps. Katie told me if I pressed my heels down to prevent the cramps.

While water boiled for my morning miso soup, I stretched my hamstring on both legs. That relieved the pain along the inside of the knee. I could walk longer than I could before I did that. I tried this once before with success. I had no idea why I didn't do it again.

I got calls from both Jeans and Damon. Damon had a little disaster, a very little disaster, given what was happening to many people worldwide. They booked a BnB on the coast for the weekend. The house was a block from the beach and had excellent reviews. The pictures from the inside of the house were fabulous. However, when they arrived, they discovered their neighbors' houses were four feet from theirs. That was doable. What was not was the constant loud noise coming from the houses. Damon, Cylin, and August spent some time on the beach and went out to dinner. When they returned to the house, the noise level was the same. They packed up and went home.

Damon reported the temperature in LA was bearable in the 80s. I checked the weather app here in Kona. It gave the temp at 80, but that was at the airport. The airport is at sea level. We live at 1000 feet. The temperature here is always a good five degrees cooler. While I was comfortable without a sweatshirt, it was not so warm that it would be too hot if I put one on.

Jean, my Hanai sister, reported the weather was hot in New Jersey. She bought an alarm clock to get up early before the day's heat set in and walk the grounds. She had been exercising regularly in the gym and swimming pool in their development. It's a good setup, but she needs to get out into the open air.

Jean, my friend in Tucson, reported they had a hard rain. The downpour relieved some of the extreme heat they had been experiencing.

I heard a woman's voice call, "Hello!" I couldn't figure out who it was at first. Judy and Paulette came in, returning the chairs they had borrowed when Judy's son was visiting from Lana'i with his family and to pick up the tomatoes I bought for them.

When we talked yesterday, I remembered the tomatoes. I forgot to give them to Paulette when she dropped off the water. Judy said they would pick them up when they came back from church. We both knew we would have trouble remembering. I sent her a text and told her not to open it. If it was unread, it would attract her attention the next day when she looked at her phone. Well, that trick worked for her, but I forgot it.

I was glad she thought to return the chairs. Yvette was coming home on Tuesday, and we were promised a driveway yoga session on Thursday. I needed the chair to do the yoga. I needed it before I had my THR. I wouldn't know what I would need now. Given I'm still in recovery and have some balance issues, it would be a good idea for me to use the chair and the walker for support.

I bathed Elsa today. Her back and neck looked pretty good, but she had terrible lesions on her chest, and the ones on her stomach didn't look better.

I ate a tuna fish salad sandwich for dinner tonight with a large salad. Who says I can't cook? Ha! You should try my tuna salad. Well, it was good enough. I made enough for a least two more dinners. Tomorrow night I would broil the chicken back I defrosted. Then I would go back to the tuna salad sandwich the next night. I bought a large package of sweet kale salad at Costco the other day. It would be salads daily until it was gone.

I continued watching The Baker and The Beauty. I love this series. The Latinx cast is outstanding. They create a wonderful sense of family. I could watch them forever. The Beauty cast members are good, too, particularly the character of Lewis. The woman who plays Beauty is beautiful. More importantly, she is watchable. I like the sound of her voice. I don't know if she is a good actress or just spectacularly good-looking if that look appeals to you.

Saturday, July 23, 2022

I had a fantastic night’s sleep. My leg didn’t bother me while I lay in bed or got up to go to the bathroom. I had to get up fairly early because I had a seven am Zoom meeting for my Saturday office hours. No one had signed up, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t show. No one did. I worked on the updates, solved the day’s Wordle puzzle, and finished one of the regular NY Times daily puzzles I had been working on.

Aside from washing the kitchen floor and the area around my old lady chair, it was a leisurely day. Moving the furniture was a challenge. My leg hurt, but I had had it. I needed to do some cleaning. I am far from a neat or clean freak, but even I have my limits. I finally made the tuna fish salad I wanted to make for a while. Here’s the problem with having a slow, uneventful relaxing life: it’s hard to get anything done. I can always put it off until tomorrow. I will always have plenty of time to do it tomorrow.

I continued watching The Baker and the Beauty. It is a fun rom-com, but it has some interesting themes, family values versus fame and fortune, sexual identity, and what makes a good marriage work. The characters are interesting, and the actors are good. I had to be careful, or I’d binge-watch this during the day and at night.

Friday, July 22, 2022

I got up at 5:30 today because I had a 7:30 PT appointment. I had to walk the dog, feed her, shower, do my MELT exercise, and meditate before I left the house at 7 am.

Katie, my PT, said she had been at work since a quarter after six. She was catching up on paperwork. I told her about my week, how I hurt my leg on Saturday, straining it on the walk up and down a steep hill when the tree trimmers came to determine what needed to be done to preserve my view. Katie said there was a good chance it hadn’t been my overdoing it that had caused the problem. It is normal for there to be glitches in the healing process, reoccurring problems which resolved. She worked on relaxing some of the tense muscles in my left thigh. She worked directly on the muscles around the hip joint for the first time. Since the swelling was mostly gone, she was more comfortable putting pressure directly on the surgical site.

I had a list of chores to do while I was in town. My first stop was at the UPS store to drop off some packing material for reuse. I hate to throw away what I don’t have to. The UPS store was already open at 8:30 am. As I pulled into a parking space in front of the store, someone got out of the car next to me. He was heading into the store. I asked him if he could take the large garbage bag with the packing material in for me. He was suspicious but then did it. I preferred not going in if I didn’t have to. That way, I didn’t have to put on my mask. Given how contagious this new strain of Covid is, I prefer not to be around others in an enclosed space.

My next stop was Target. I went right to the exit to find the battery recycling bin. I couldn’t find anything labeled ‘batteries.’ When I checked with a clerk, I learned they no longer provided that service. Oh, well. I went on with my shopping. I needed more acetaminophen, dog pill pockets for Elsa, and distilled water for my desktop air cooler. While there, I checked if they had Hersey’s Milk chocolate with whole almonds nuggets or kisses. They sure did. At half the price I pay when I order through Amazon. I grabbed all four available bags of the family-sized packages. I planned to go to Safeway to pick up onions, Campari tomatoes, and Dave’s whole-grain bread. I was on my way to the checkout when it occurred to me to see if Target carried any of the last two products. Sure enough. Cheaper too. I called Judy and asked if she needed some tomatoes. She turned me on to this brand. OMG! They taste like the ones I knew as a child. So good!!! Target also carried Dave’s bread. I wasn’t surprised they had a plain yellow onion.

Before I went to the transfer station to drop off cardboard for recycling, I stopped at Office Depot to see if they recycled batteries. Nah. They don’t do it either. When I looked it up online, it discovered no one recycles used batteries. Oh, well. The clerk said to try Atlas recycling. They have a booth at the transfer station. Correction: they had a booth at the transfer station. The homeless are the recyclers these days. I collect my refundable recyclables and give them to get the refund money.

Since it was still too early to get into Costco, my last stop, I drove up to the Foodbank to drop off a box of chicken ramen soup cups. I thought the soup would be good. Yuck! I liked their miso ramen; I thought the chicken must be great. Not! For the second time today, someone arrived just as I did, and I handed them the box without going into the store myself.

Costco wasn’t open yet when I pulled into the parking lot. I got in the waiting line. At the far end of the building, a group of people were doing light yoga exercises. They were employees waiting for the opening along with the customers. Walking around the store, I saw some of them with brooms sweeping.

One of the expensive items was after was on sale. I bought three of them. Because the store opened before 10, the official opening time, I was out by 10:30 and home by eleven.

The Wordle word for today was triste. I missed getting the answer four days ago. I often get the hard ones and miss the easier ones.

At noon I had my second appointment with seven-year-old L. Today I had her under better circumstances than last time. She sat at the kitchen table; her image was in the middle of the screen, the lighting was good, and her mother wasn’t there to correct her. I have had several uncomfortable encounters with the mother. She “knows’ how everything should be. She has unwavering confidence in everything she knows and won’t consider another point of view. Not my cup of tea.

I had a good time with L. She revealed her ‘diary.’ As far as I knew, she couldn’t read or write. The diary was filled with sketches. The one I saw wasn’t particularly good. If she keeps it up, she may be good eventually. Knowing she was inclined toward art, I tried a BrainManagementSkills exercise. I had her visualize her blanket. When I asked where she remembered it, she pointed to the bridge of her nose. This was a new one. I pushed her to use the center of her forehead. I might have to reconsider that. Maybe she was showing me something new. I had her write her name on the blanket and read the letters forward and backward. She could ‘read’ the first three, reading the letters from left to right. When I asked for the last two, she could recall them. Then I asked her to name the letters starting with the last letter and moving to the first She was able to visualize them, but she named the letter e as b. I asked her to reconsider its name. She went through the alphabet and correctly named the letter e, an excellent strategy, but why does she get confused so easily?

I asked her if she wanted to fix the problem with missing naming letters. She said, “No!” She liked it when she did it, and her friends laughed. Great! I pointed out she would probably have trouble learning to read if she didn’t fix it. She told me she didn’t have problems reading. I showed her the story we worked on last time. She could identify the word a, the, and cat. That was it. I pointed out she didn’t have the problem of misnaming words when she read because she couldn’t read them.

I had proposed writing a story together at the beginning of the class. I opened a new document. She asked how she could draw the story. I told her she had to use words, and I would write it. No, she wanted to draw it. When I made clear she didn’t have a choice, she told a well-structured story.

Her mother texted me when the class was over to ask how it went. I called her. I told her what she had said about not wanting to change. The mother told me the girl was saying that because she was insecure. That certainly was possible, but I wasn’t convinced. She seemed sincere, and it would be a sophisticated scam for a seven-year-old to pull off. She insisted her daughter did not mean what she said. I replied that I didn’t know. Please, don’t tell her what to think. Let me guide her. If she did take action to control the situation, I would have to quit. She was interfering with my way of working. The mom is entitled to have someone who does what she wants. She should hire someone who will do that. It’s not me. I have a very different approach to working with students than shoulding them. I want to know who they are. You can’t get people to change unless you know who they are in the first place. You can’t solve a problem unless you acknowledge it.

When I thought about my conversation with the mother afterward, I thought maybe she was saying L embraced the way her mind worked as compensation. If you have a lemon, make lemonade and call it good. There’s just ‘saying it” versus believing what you say, embracing a defense as a good thing. The defense may solve one problem. Unfortunately, it could create several more serious ones.

On my evening walk with Elsa, Mei approached me, asking if I would consider tutoring her six-year-old daughter. She was concerned she couldn’t teach her proper English. Mei speaks with a Chinese accent and makes some grammatical errors, but she is understandable. I assured her that Anna would learn to speak English despite her mother’s limitations. I told her my story; it’s the story of most children born to immigrants. We learn from our peers. If we are around peers who speak standard English, that’s what we learn to speak.

I don’t like to push young children into tutoring. If Anna were under six, I couldn’t have considered it. I had someone ask me to tutor their four-year-old in letter formation. I turned down the job. I disagree with pushing children to learn to read earlier than five or six. I like the Waldorf philosophy, which says to work on language skills and storytelling skills in preschool and the first two years of regular school. Only start teaching children to read at the age of seven. I told Mei I would only work on Zoom. I prefer it in several ways to avoid direct contact and exposure to Covid.

Judy might be interested in tutoring her. Judy would meet with her in person and has training and experience. Judy had the same reaction I had. Anna didn’t need tutoring in English. She would be fine.

Darby called to ask me if I wanted a pink shirt. Her mom had sent her one in the wrong size, and she didn’t wear pink. She also asked me if I knew a neighbor she had run into. I didn’t recognize the name. The man asked about me; he hadn’t seen me. I was blessed to live in a neighborhood where people look out for each other. I remember the world being like that when I was a child, although it wasn’t always to my advantage. Neighbors reported my behavior to my parents when I preferred they not. No one is reporting on me nowadays. It’s all good.

Thursday, July 21, 2022

I had an early appointment with the M & W sisters at 8:30. I did the Gating Game with both. It was the first time in a while for going-into-second-grade M. I thought she was avoiding it because it was hard. Still, she went along with my proposal without resistance. She needed help considering the meaning of the text and the letters in words. The problem persisted today.

With going-into-sixth-grade W, we spent a lot of time on background knowledge, defining words, and locating Europe and Polynesia on a world map. Where was Europe, and what countries were in it? She didn’t have a clue. She would be studying the world in sixth grade. I, too, learned something about the countries in Europe. I still have Yugoslavia in mind. I looked it up. It started to break up in 1991, and the last county to declare independence was in 2008. I also learned or relearned that Turkey is half in Europe and half in Asia, as is Russia. I needed a nap after the sessions.

I had an appointment with Shelly, my therapist/life coach. I worked on my relationship with my father. He died sixty-six years ago when I was fifteen and my sister was ten. I barely remember him. He was a good, attentive family man who loved having daughters. As with all relationships, there was a downside. Whatever my relationship with him was, it got frozen when I was still a child. I never had the opportunity to free myself from his parental grasp as I did with my mother. He had been my lifeline when I was a child, but that’s not an appropriate relationship for an adult woman to have with her father. I hadn’t paid much attention to my relationship with him in therapy. My relationship with my mother drew all the attention because of the constant state of combat.

I had Adolescent D at 2 pm. I spent some time lecturing him. He was still conceptually locked into behaviors that were counterproductive when it came to learning, particularly if he was going to learn to read. When I told him he would never learn to read if he didn’t make an effort, he promptly said, “I can read.” I asked him if he read as well as he wanted to. Did he read as well as his parents? His parents are both college educated. No. How well did he want to read? Well enough to read texts? Is that all he wants to be able to read? He thought about it and admitted no. Does this boy say anything that comes to mind to protect himself from facing his sense of failure, or does he not understand how poorly he reads compared to his peers? Self-defense was apparent in his response today, but I’d seen other moments when I wasn’t so sure. It was almost as if his perspective had changed from minute to minute. It was good enough if he looked at his reading from one perspective. From another, not.

My air cooler arrived. I ordered it thinking it might be a suitable replacement for some of the air conditioners on the property. While I have two air conditioners, one in the library and one in the guest room for Sir Damon to use when he visits, I never use them. I don’t even turn on the fans. I often wear a sweatshirt all day, even in July. I was wearing one as I wrote this. Josh and B used them. They were old systems and pulled a lot of electricity. The one I purchased was smaller than a toaster. However, I don’t know why I was surprised. It only costs $39. The directions were incomplete and hard to read. I needed a magnifying glass to see the small print. The company posted its support site on the box. I Googled it. Surprise! It didn’t exist. I would have to see what I got stuck with.

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

My leg hurt as I lay in bed in the early morning. That was scary. When I walked, I stressed my muscles. When I lay in bed, they still hurt. I had to consider the problem was with my knee. That would not be good. I used the acupuncture pen on those muscles. That relieved the pain. It was a promising result.

When I walked Elsa, I put all my weight on the outer edge of my left foot. That helped relieve the stress as I walked. Fortunately, Elsa didn’t need a long walk before she was ready to go home.

I did Achille heel stretches several times a day, as Katie recommended. I braced my foot against one of the two steps in my house and held the position for 90 seconds. However, I hadn’t been doing the hamstring stretch Katie told me to do. When I did one, it immediately impacted my leg problem. For the rest of the day, I walked around without pain. I didn’t feel I even needed the walking stick.

It was a weird day. I was perfectly happy to do nothing. I just napped and stared at the ceiling. That was not good. There are days when I do nothing, but I feel wasted. Not today. I was a happy vegetable.

Jean, my Hanai sister, called. I missed it. Why doesn’t my phone ring sometimes, even when I haven’t silenced it? It drives me nuts. I called her back. Yesterday was her husband’s eighty-sixth birthday. His daughter came to visit. The interaction between their respective children was a problem when they were young. Jean focused on Damon and John on his two children. It wasn’t the best arrangement. It still caused stress even though all those kids would be over fifty as of September 15. Old, unresolved issues between family members are the best.

When I got off the phone with Jean, I checked the time. It was after 2 pm. What !!!?? I had an appointment with Adolescent D at 2. I usually set the alarm on my phone for ten minutes before the appointment. That gives me time to get ready. I quickly jumped on Zoom. D was on a few minutes later.

D’s mother was feeling still feeling lousy with Covid. Had he done some reading? Yes, but he didn’t remember what. When D says he did some reading, he is not talking about sitting down to read an article or a book. He’s talking about reading a text message, subtitles, or a label on a box, the reading you would expect any emergent reader to do. D only started doing that about six months ago. He makes no deliberate effort. He does what comes easily.

Continuing our discussion from yesterday, I asked him why he objected to finding a book he might be able to read or reading the book while he listened to someone reading the book out loud. He said he didn’t know. I asked him if the thought of it made him feel bad. Maybe. He had no idea and made little effort to explore why. I couldn’t rely on his parents to make sure he would do any reading. I had to rely on him.

We continued reading the list of words I had written, using the missed word list his other tutor put together. I identified a syllable pattern in the target word and then wrote every word that contained that pattern. Here’s an example:

c-ow, b-ow, D-ow, f-l-ow/e-r, g-r-ow-l, h-ow, h-ow-l, n-ow, p-ow, r-ow,

s-ow, v-ow, w-ow d-ow-n: b-r-ow-n, c-l-ow-n, c-r-ow-n, d-r-ow-n, f-r-ow-n, t-ow-n, ow-l

In this exercise, D finally got the idea that there are repeated word patterns. Each word is not a unique expression having nothing in common with the other words. I did get that idea into his head. He agreed that this was important for reading because he was a polite child, but he had his idea of how to learn to read. I doubt he believed what I was teaching would help. I suspect he thought he was learning by his approach. He was undeterred by the evidence that his preferred method hadn’t worked, and he had made progress since I started working with him. Sometimes I think I’ve gotten through to him, and then he proves me wrong. However, today he read the complete list at a pretty good rate. While he didn’t get every rhyming word right, he could correct himself.

I took another nap. When I checked my phone, I saw I had a text from Jana, the woman I meet with weekly, to counsel her. The first-grade student she was working with was making amazing progress. She saw this little boy in an afterschool program. He caused problems there. There was a change in this behavior as his reading got better.

Jana wanted to ask me about her student’s three-year-old brother. He had a speech impediment. The six-year-old had had one when he was younger and was bullied in his preschool. The teacher only caught his responses when attacked and believed he was the cause of all the problems. The mom was hoping to avoid sim ilar issues with her younger son. I advised Jana to recommend using the 5 Stories video. The mom should play the video while the boys sleep at night. I don’t like to recommend the video to preschool children. I think it encourages left-brain development. I’m with the Waldorf philosophy: Don’t push reading until 2nd grade. However, when there is a speech problem, using the tape may help. It has already helped others. I didn’t design it for this purpose. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was to anyone else.

I wanted to watch something light on tv at night. I tried watching By the Sea last night. It was bad. It starred Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as an unhappy couple for individual and joint reasons. Jolie directed it. She should stay away from that end of the business. I watched Destination Wedding, a B romantic comedy with two good performers in their waning years, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it was a bearable distraction.

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

I got up early and walked Elsa long enough for her to do her business. My leg was still bothering me. Before I sat down to meditate, I opened the files I would need in my session with the M & W sisters. After meditating for an hour, I was ready for my morning nap. I read more of What My Bones Know before falling out for forty-five minutes.

It took an unusual amount of time for M & W to sign on to the Zoom meeting. I discovered that neither of their parents was home. Their mother was at work, and their father was at a political meeting. He was planning to run for run for something. The girls had to sign themselves on.

Going-into-second-grade M started by telling me about the goo she made. At first, it sounded like she had created the recipe. She said it included detergent and showed me a Clorox bottle. I said something about that not being detergent. She got out the goo she had made and played with it. When going-into-sixth W came on, M showed her she still had the goo in her hands, and the Clorox bottle was sitting there. M said, “OMG! You used Clorox. Mom’s going to kill you if you ruin your clothes. Go wash your hands.” W told me other stories of mistakes her younger sister made. M is younger than W, but she is old enough to know the difference between detergent and Clorox. It was the first time I got an indication there may be something wrong with her cognitively. Hearing W tell stories about her, M told her to shut up. It was clear these stories hurt her.

This session with the girls was stressful. I didn’t know what made the difference between it being so instead of a pleasure. I was ready for a second nap when it was over. I made sure I was caught up with the public blog post. I usually did that first thing in the morning. Now I made meditating and napping a priority.

I had a two pm session with D. His mom was down with Covid. He said she was isolated in the house and feeling lousy. The session was more lecture than actual work. Getting him to make an effort and use his conscious mind to teach himself something new was always challenging.

Today I asked D if he would read books or articles independently. No! Would he be willing to read along while someone read the material? “No! That’s ridiculous.” Either way, he has to learn to make that effort, or he’s screwed. He can’t walk away from all situations that don’t come easily or feel comfortable. When he does take on challenges with grace, his brain will change. Anything new or unfamiliar has always been a struggle.

D’s mother told me he was never willing to pursue something if it required effort. He wanted everything to come easily. Did he have his current reading problems because he refused to learn another way, or did he refuse to learn another way because of an inherent problem? We will never know.

D had continuing trouble discerning the difference between sad and said. I found a memory trick. There is an i in said. I told him to think, “I said.” You can’t say “I sad; it’s not correct English. When I asked him if he understood what I said, he said, “Yeah,’ in a somewhat annoyed tone. I asked him to repeat what I said. He wasn’t even close. Did he have an auditory processing or an attention problem? Is this problem something he cultivated, or was he born with a neurological impairment? I restated the trick. This time I asked him to repeat what I had said. He had trouble repeating it accurately. I planned to do this more. Why hadn’t I done it earlier? This boy’s ego is so fragile that I must think twice before forcing him to reveal his limitations. He still didn’t allow me to see his image on Zoom. He spent his life hiding. It was frustrating. Could I have gotten further by forcing him, or was respecting his ego boundaries the best approach? I would never know for sure. I knew that I could push more now than in the past. It was the best I could do.

I watched the Netflix production of Persuasion on Jean’s recommendation. I loved it. Dakota Johnson was a pleasure. They used color-blind casting as they had in Bridgerton, but without any attempt to explain it. It was still a little jarring. While I fully support such casting, showing people of color as equals to whites in all ways, I was still not used to it. I first saw color-blind casting in contemporary British shows. I quickly adjusted to that. The historical dramas are a bit harder. It does not represent the reality of that time.

Some argue that such casting for historic dramas does a disservice to people of African descent. Some people will watch these shows and believe they represent the truth for black people back then when it don’t. Color blind casting can be a two-edged sword. However, anyone who watches these shows and believes they accurately represent the past is either stunningly ignorant of the historical truth or predisposed to deny the history of slavery and the ongoing mistreatment of all people of color. Some deny the Holocaust. They don’t need a movie depicting a world where Jews were treated well. My father’s family were Jews in Germany. They felt fully German. They were proud Germans; they were integrated. That truth does not contradict the truth of the Holocaust.